Museum Menagerie
by Tygerwulfe
Summary: The Doctor and Rose make an after hours visit to a museum that gets them both thinking about the true cost of time.  TWO ALTERNATE ENDINGS!
1. Museum Menagerie

**Title:** Museum Menagerie

**Author: **Tygerwulfe

**Pairing:** Ten/Rose

**Summary:** An after-hours museum visit gets both time travelers thinking about the price of time passing.

**Author's Notes: **Ok, this is not the entire story. There are two alternate endings to this story. They will be posted as a second and third chapter, but clearly labled as what they are. I couldn't decide which ending to write, so I wrote both. I hope you enjoy them.

"Isn't it brilliant!" The Doctor laughed as he led Rose through the darkened natural history museum, circa 1956. "Humans and your beautiful obsession with preserving the past, even when it's your fault that it isn't there anymore!"

"It's a bit creepy, though, yeah?" Rose said, even as she smiled. Her arms tightened around the Doctor's and her head rested against his shoulder as they walked. "Night in a museum, and all. Things that used to be alive, aren't anymore, but are still standing here like they were." She stopped to peer into a display case. "Like this. '_Tasmanian Tiger'_. Looks more like a sort of dog to me."

"Ah! Also known as the Tasmanian Wolf, the "Tiger-wolf," or by its scientific name, simply the Thylacine." The Doctor peered at the mounted creature in the case, and his voice grew softer. "This was the last one seen alive by humans. Kept in a zoo in the last years of its life, they called him Benjamin."

"He looks so sad," Rose said softly. Her eyes followed the unmoving line of the creature's long snout up to the dark eyes that reflected a bit of the security lights that surrounded them. It gave the eyes a depth that no soulless thing should have. It made her feel like crying.

"Well, he's got reason to be, I suppose." The Doctor's voice was uncharacteristically quiet. "The last of his kind, and all. Had to be lonely for him." No one to hear him cry out for companionship, for a mate, for another of his own kind. No like hearts to beat near his in the darkness. The Doctor drifted into a silent reverie for a moment. He was pulled out by the sensation of a different heartbeat, though – a single one, against his arm as Rose hugged his arm to her chest.

Rose was looking up at him, worry clear in her eyes. She knew where his thoughts had gone as clearly as if he'd continued that train of thought aloud. "Doctor?"

He blinked, and it was as if a switch was thrown in his head. This one girl, this precious, precious girl… She was the only thing that kept him from losing himself in his grief. She'd brought him back from his darkest, and literally given him new life. When he smiled at her, it was genuine. "Alright, then. Alons-y! More to see!" They started walking again and he found himself still smiling as she snuggled into his side again.

More expounding, more exploring, more laughing and talking. This night was turning into a lovely chance for him to show off his knowledge of human history for his attentive companion. A good distraction from thinking about how much he had in common with that one creature, back in the display case. The last of it's kind, that had died alone in a cage.

They rounded a corner into a cavernous room and all speaking suddenly stopped. There they were, confronted with a massive pile of reconstructed skeletons. The sizes ranged from giraffe, down to smaller creatures like antelope. These skeletal creatures weren't in cases – they were open to the air and some were even within arm's reach. At the far end, a towering mammoth skeleton trumpeted trunklessly to the night sky through the domed roof. The two travelers just stood in the corner and stared.

Rose bit her lip. It felt almost sacrilegious to be the first to speak, but she turned her head into the Doctor's sleeve and whispered, "All those animals…"

The Time Lord nodded slowly. "Museum specimens, the lot of them. Mostly donations from hunters… or zoos… or the like." There was something about this room. It was like a mausoleum – it felt wrong to speak loudly. Disrespectful, somehow, to the creatures whose remains were contained within. He stared up at an eighteen foot tall giraffe skeleton that loomed over them. Random facts passed through his forebrain, but unlike in the other rooms – he couldn't seem to get it out. Giraffes have the same number of neck vertebrae as humans – they're just much larger. The Giraffe has the longest tongue of any recorded Earth creature. The Giraffe, when sparring for mates, uses its long neck and tiny horns as a kind of club to knock into the other competing male and tries to drive him away from the female. But none of those facts, as fascinating as he was sure Rose would find them, would come out of his mouth.

Rose released her hold on her Doctor's arm and moved through the forest of bones slowly. Most of these animals she wouldn't have recognized if she saw them alive. General names snapped back in her head from biology – antelope, ibex, moose, elk, fallow deer, and giraffe – but nothing that told her anything about these individual animals. Just general information on their species, a bit of biology, where they set in the food chain and good things like that. She stopped in front of the massive mammoth skeleton that dominated a dais at the far end of the room. All the other skeletons faced this one, for the most part. As if they were gathered to pay homage to a visiting dignitary. A noble from another time and place.

"He's like a time traveler," she said softly as the Doctor walked up to stand beside her. When he didn't speak, she looked up at him. "Died thousands of years ago, but here he is. Standing in this museum. Majestic and powerful, and representing an entire world we can't see anymore."

The Doctor nodded. "It's that respect for your planet's past, for history, for life, that makes humans so brilliant, Rose." He gazed up at the massive curving tusks and drew in a deep breath. This room was heavy with the scent of years, and death, and time. He knew Rose couldn't feel it, smell it, taste it, the way he could… but she had her own very definite respect for it. He watched as she lifted her hand and tentatively touched the mammoth's massive leg bone. One finger slid down the length of bone slowly, and she shivered as if cold.

"He's lonely, too." Her whisper was almost too quiet for the Doctor to hear. He looked at his companion as she withdrew her hand and wrapped her arms around herself. He slipped off his trench coat and slipped it around her shoulders before offering her his arm.

"Come on now, tour's over." He smiled at her. "The sun will be up and the guards will be patrolling soon. We don't want them to find a very out-of-place box in the Egyptian exhibit, now do we?" He was rewarded with a smile, and when she wrapped her arms around his, he lead her from the mausoleum of bones and back to the TARDIS.


	2. Ending 1

The Doctor grinned as he practically bounced around the TARDIS console, pulling levers and turning dials. "Almost there, Rose! Farther back than you've ever been before!"

Rose grinned from the jump seat. "How far, Doctor?"

He gave that excited, manic laugh of his. "Wait until you see it! Oh, it'll be brilliant!" Rose laughed. He didn't answer her question, but she hadn't expected him to. He loved to surprise her.

The ship landed with a bone-jarring thunk that tossed the Doctor onto the seat beside her, where he grinned before leaping to his feet. "Here we go!" He grabbed his coat in one hand, and her hand with the other, then pulled her with him to the door. They were both laughing as they stepped out and a fairly cold wind whipped across the grassy plain.

"Oh! Cold!" Rose laughed, hugging herself in response to the chill. "Where are we? Scotland again?"

The Doctor grinned. "Nope. Not anywhere, really. Not yet. No one's thought to name anything yet." In the distance, there was some animal call that sounded strangely like the brass section of a marching band.

Rose blinked in confusion. "Elephants?" She turned and walked away from him, pulling her coat tighter around her shoulders as she walked around the TARDIS. When she reached the other side though, she froze, staring in awe at the sight that greeted her.

Open plains as far as the eye could see, with mountains barely butting up in the background. But it wasn't the amazing view, or the chill wind that stole her breath away – it was the group of animals coming toward them. Their tusks were massive and curved back toward their brown, shaggy-furred faces. Trunks raised and the trumpeting sound she'd heard earlier was made louder when the wind shifted direction. As the animals came closer, their sheer size became apparent as well, showing why their name had become a synonym for "massive." Rose's mouth dropped open and she covered it with her hands. These… they were…

"Mammoths!" The Doctor said with a grin, walking up next to his companion and slipping an arm around her shoulders. "Woolly Mammoths, to be exact. Of the Steppe variety." She was laughing with delight now at the sight of the living versions of the skeletal creature they had encountered just the previous night. "Rose Tyler, welcome to the Pleistocene. Also known as the ice age. That's a bit of a misnomer, though, considering that your planet experienced many ice ages over its long existence, and this was only the one most recent to the birth of humanity. I suppose that's why it stood-" He was cut off on his diatribe by a gentle touch over his mouth.

Rose grinned up at him, two fingers covering his lips. She wanted to hear everything he had to say about these beautiful creatures, this incredible time that she was becoming the first modern human ever to see. But not now. Now, she just wanted to watch them. She took her fingers away from his lips and wrapped her arms around his waist, snuggling into his side as they watched the parade of mammoths pass by. The Doctor's arm tightened around Rose and she smiled. In her mind's eye, she ventured back to the museum they'd visited the night before and back to the mammoth skeleton, eternally trumpeting to the sky. She smiled as she realized the real purpose of displays like that – no human before her would ever witness these creatures alive… but there wasn't a single one on the planet who would ever forget them.


	3. Ending 2

The cries of animals in the middle of the night were the only sounds in the darkness of the Hobart Zoo, in 1936, Tasmania. A random roar, here, a trumpet there, a bark every now and then. Someone would have noticed the odd noise and flashing light that occurred at the Thylacine pen, if there'd been anyone there. However, staff was minimal and the night staff was essentially nonexistent. The animals could fend for themselves for a few hours every night, after all. What was the worst that could happen?

The worst that could happen, of course, was a death. And no keeper had any idea that this would be the night they would lose the last Thylacine.

But a Time Lord knows.

The doors of the TARDIS opened slowly. Rose tried not to frighten the already panting animal lying in the corner of his cage. He was about the size of a fairly large dog, standing a little taller than her knees on all fours – but he wasn't standing right now. She clucked her tongue softly as she walked toward the creature. Dark brown, intelligent eyes watched her in the light that came from within the blue box, and a stiff tail moved on the dusty ground behind him.

Rose knelt down and offered the strange marsupial her hand to stiff. Accustomed to humans at this point, and too weak to do anything about it if he weren't, he gave her hand a cautious sniff, then a little lick. She settled down onto the hard-packed dirt beside the dying animal and gently pulled his upper body into her lap.

She spoke to him quietly, telling him of museums and exhibits and histories. Of how the human race would always remember him and how people for centuries would hold out hope that more of his kind would be found. She petted him, her whispered words and the sound of her strong human heartbeat soothed him. And it was in her arms that the last of his kind passed from the world.

It was the misunderstandings of humans that did the creature in. The previous days had been insanely hot, and there wasn't enough cover in his enclosure. The official cause of death would be on the books as "exposure," a fancy way of saying "we should've known better, but we didn't." And no one would ever know of the girl who held the last of a species as he faded from existence, or of the last of another species who witnessed the passing like a silent, lonely angel. No creature deserves to be truly alone.

The Doctor and Rose left the animal's body there to be found by his keepers in the morning and returned to the TARDIS, they held each other. As the ship dematerialized, and they sat upon the jump seat together, in each other's arms, the Time Lord rested his cheek against Rose's soft hair and closed his eyes.

The last Time Lord wasn't alone anymore. He had Rose Tyler. And as far as he was concerned, that was just brilliant.


End file.
